And there’s been some really good survivability of those eggs this year, so we’ve got a lot of moths, a lot of them laying two thousand eggs, and all of those are also living. And when you’re laying that many eggs, typically there are a lot of natural enemies, some diseases, some parasitoids that can help take those out and keep those populations in check. So we must have had some really good winds to get good dispersal throughout the Midwest, and they must have had some really high survivability.Ī female can lay anywhere between 1,000 and 2,000 eggs. The armyworm is a migratory species that overwinters in Florida and Texas, and it is brought northward on winds.

Everybody seems to be having armyworms this year, so why is it so bad?Įntomologists don’t have a pinpoint answer for you, but what we can say is it all has to do with weather, weather patterns. I’ve had reports from Pennsylvania, up to Michigan, over through Missouri, down into Kentucky/Tennessee areas. Over the last week, I’ve had a lot of calls about fall armyworm.

Watch or read on to learn why armyworms are so bad this year, how to identify them, and what you can do to control them. Nikki Hendrickson, our resident entomologist, recently sat down to answer some questions about the armyworm phenomenon we’re seeing.

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